It was only 3 degrees this morning, but soon warmed up during the day and so I got stuck into some gardening again this morning. I finished off digging over the former chook pen which had been colonised by grass, stinging nettle, hoarhound and mallow so it was a bit of a jungle out there. It is now a neat and orderly bed about 2 metres square that has furrows and hills running roughly north south so that the plants are all getting access to the sun (it is also on a gentle slope so the back ones get plenty of their share of sunlight. The top row and a bit has been planted, rather optimistically, with some sweet corn seedlings that were in the shop when i went there this afternoon. The intention is that this bed will be one of those permaculturey things where the corn shades the pumpkins and supports the climbing beans. I have some scarlet runner seeds to go in once I work out if the corn will survive (I understand it is a good idea to give the corn a bit of a headstart to save it being engulfed by the beans).

The broody hens continue dysfunctional and three more eggs were in pieces in the run this morning. So the presumed culprit - the rose-comb - has been removed to her own run where, once again ,she has decided she is not broody after all. The eggs have been transferred to the incubator so if anything has survived the last two days, it will have a better chance of continuing through to final stages. I have left a few eggs with the other hen so she can be rewarded for her patience (I have been diving in and around her several times through this crisis), and if the eggs in the incubator hatch, I will give her the chickens to raise. The rose-comb, on the other hand, may become soup in the not too distant future.

Apparently you should candle the eggs at 10 days to check on fertility rates and dispose of the unsuccessful eggs. It was never this complicated when I was a kid - the hen sat on the eggs, the eggs hatched, or didn't, and everything in the garden was rosy. Sometimes I suspect maybe I fuss too much. But then it does save the aggravation of a rotten egg exploding inside the incubator - which could be very nasty indeed ...

Needless to say I did not find the hex-head thingy yet, I suspect it is in the container, so no progress on the raised beds - but the compost heap is significantly higher than it was yesterday from all the stuff I dug up. Some of the root systems from the more pernicious weeds have been bagged for disposal at the tip - but I forgot to load them when I finally did do my tip run for the day. Oh well.

The weather turned unpleasant by 3 so I retired indoors and have been preparing what smells like a delicious curry - beef vindaloo, from scratch - including grinding the marsala in the mortar, having finally found the pestle!